Sunday, March 30, 2014

Presidential hopeful subject of sarcastic "vote for the pimp" movement on social media, leading to calls for a ban.

March 30, 2014

Opponents of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi have launched an internet campaign
against his bid to become the Egyptian president, leading to calls from
the pro-Sisi camp for a ban on social media.

The Twitter hashtag,
roughly translated from Arabic as "Vote for the Pimp", is being used on
Facebook and Twitter in several languages to mock Sisi's announced
plans to run in the presidential poll in April.

According to the tracking website, Keyhole, the hashtag achieved more
than 100 million impressions within days of creation, and generated
tens of thousands of messages on Twitter. Keyhole states that 23 percent
of the hashtag's impressions came from outside Egypt.

"The power cuts four times a day, therefore #vote_for_the_pimp," read one of the tweets.

The word "pimp" is extremely offensive in Egyptian culture, but its
use also mockingly references the North American meaning: showy,
impressive, the boss of a gang.

It comes in response to pro-Sisi hashtags over the past months,
including "I will vote for Sisi" and "Complete your good deed",
reflecting the general's soaring popularity among many Egyptians.

The use of the phrase has also broken beyond the realms of the internet: Footage taken by activists during Friday rallies in Egypt shows protesters chanting "Vote for the pimp, a president for Egypt."

“Erdogan has shut down Twitter altogether simply because they described him a thief,” he said.

The presidential election will come almost 10 months after Sisi, as
defence minister and army commander, led military efforts to remove from
power the country's first elected civilian president, Mohamed Morsi.

Brutal beatings, sexual
abuse, and electric shocks are being carried out on detainees, including
teenage children, in Egypt, according to testimonies gathered by the
BBC.

As many 20,000 people are estimated to have been held since last July in a sweeping clampdown on dissent.

A growing number are now emerging from police stations and prisons with serious allegations of torture.

The claims are denied by the military-backed interim government. 'ELECTROCUTED'

For 15-year old Ahmed Abdel Fattah, the trouble began on 24
January, when his fondness for his mobile phone cost him his freedom.

He was using the phone to film an Islamist protest near his home in Sharqiya Province, north of Cairo.

"I was curious," he said. "Why shouldn't I film something that I see every night on TV?"

When some local thugs tried to steal the phone he refused to hand it over, so they handed him over to the police.

The softly-spoken and neatly dressed teenager says that was the start of 34 days of torture at a local police station.

"They electrocuted me in sensitive places like my spine, here
and here on my arms, and in sensitive areas like between my legs," he
said, gesturing to the areas.

"And when they electrocuted me I used to fall down on the
ground, and I could not stand up. At the same time they were beating me.
And sometimes they would throw water to increase the voltage."

Ahmed said he got special attention from the police - in
spite of his youth - because he was suspected of belonging to the banned
Muslim Brotherhood.

"They wanted me to be afraid," he said. "They thought I would
have a lot to confess to. Of course I am not from the Brotherhood at
all. They were saying so-and-so is getting outside financing, and this
person has weapons, and you are getting weapons from them. They said you
had Molotov Cocktails on you and you hit an officer. I told him I could
not hit an ant."

Ahmed says he was accused of carrying a total of 18 Molotov
Cocktails, though a previously broken arm means he struggles to lift
much.

His father Abdel Fattah, a school inspector, sat grim-faced
alongside him, as he gave his account. He told us Ahmed suffers from
epilepsy, and his health has worsened since his arrest. 'SYSTEMATIC TORTURE'

Many of those who emerge from detention are too frightened to
speak, but we have tracked down other detainees who provided detailed
and credible testimony about a range of severe abuses.

Their accounts cannot be independently verified but they tally with
reports from leading human rights groups who say that there is
widespread torture and brutality in detention.

"Egypt has gone back to the systematic torture of the Mubarak
era," said Gamal Eid, of the Arabic Network for Human Rights
Information. "There is more torture now because there are more people
being arrested. What's different is that the proportion of barbaric
torture is higher."

Yassin Mohammed says he is proof of that. The slight
19-year-old is a seasoned democracy campaigner. He was arrested in
central Cairo in January and held for 42 days.

He told us he had decided to speak out for the sake of others
who are still being tortured. His account of being electrocuted was
punctuated by pauses and a troubled nervous laugh.

"I was expecting that they were just going to start hitting
me - normally - like every time," he said, "and then I was surprised
when they took off my trousers and put the wires on me. I was screaming
and shouting.

"While you are being electrocuted, there are strange things
happening to you, you don't know what's going on, you feel like you are
going to die, and sometimes you feel like you are completely drunk,
completely out of it, and at the end after they remove the wire, you
just feel dizzy-dizzy-dizzy."

With shaking hands, Yassin demonstrated how his body
continued to tremble after the wires were removed. He told us that after
his session he heard the police calling out for others to be brought
in.

Yassin says his torment included "unspeakable things". His account of being sexually assaulted is too disturbing to print.

His arrest came at a protest calling for the release of several detainees, including a 19-year-old student called Ayat Hamada.THREATENED WITH RAPE
She is now back home, having shared a similar fate.

Ayat says she too was sexually assaulted, at the time of her
arrest. In this conservative society, it is a rare admission from a
woman.

"It was physical," she told us.
"I don't dare to explain more. But they harassed us in a very, very
humiliating way, and the aim was to break our spirits."

As she spoke her friend, Salsabile Gharabawi, squeezed her
hand for moral support. The women sat side-by-side, with headscarves
covering their hair. Both said they were beaten and threatened with
rape.

Salsabile, 21, a business student, said police forced her and other women to have pregnancy tests.
"They parked the car away from the hospital gate," she said,
"and made us walk in the street with handcuffs. They kept making us go
in circles around the whole hospital so people could see us. The
humiliation broke us more than the beatings."

It is easy to get detained in Egypt these days - just go to a
protest, or even walk by. An estimated 20,000 people have been rounded
up in a brutal crackdown on dissent since the army ousted Islamist
President Mohammed Morsi last July. INDIGNITIES AND BEATINGS
In a bitter irony, more than 1,000 were arrested on 25 January
- the third anniversary of the revolution which swept away Hosni
Mubarak. Khaled El-Sayed, a newly-wed, was one of them. The 30-year-old
engineer was a leading activist in the revolution.

He described a routine of abuses, indignities and beatings - the
worst of which was a brutal assault lasting over half an hour. It
happened after officers found a letter from his wife in his overcrowded
prison cell.

"There were two on this side and two on that side," he said.
"The four flanking me starting beating me. They starting hitting me
against the pillar, they hit me in the back, and they put me on the
ground and started kicking me in the stomach." Khaled was freed after 42
days, but is still a prisoner to his nightmares.

'NO COVER-UP'

A senior official showed us video footage of a neat and clean prison -
filmed several years ago - and told us there was no problem.

"I categorically deny that there is any such thing as
electrocution or torture in prisons or police stations," said General
Abu Bakr Abdel Karim.

When challenged, he conceded there might be "mistakes or
transgressions" by police but he insisted this did not reach the level
of torture. "It's not covered up," he said. "We don't stay quiet about
it. We confront it and we hold anyone who has mistreated the public to
account."

Human rights groups disputed that. According to Amnesty
International's Nicholas Piachaud, the authorities do not take reports
of torture seriously and most go unpunished.

Egypt is now counting down to a presidential election. The
former Army Chief, Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, looks certain to emerge as the
new Pharaoh. There are fears that torture could tighten its grip under
President Sisi.

At the heavily fortified interior ministry we asked for the
government's response to the growing number of grave abuse allegations.

Australian Associated Press

March 29, 2014

Four people including an Egyptian woman journalist have been
killed in Cairo as police clashed with Islamists protesting against
ex-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's presidency bid, a security official
said.

The violence erupted in a deeply polarised Egypt as supporters of
deposed president Mohamed Morsi took to the streets of Cairo, Alexandria
and other cities to vent their anger at Sisi who overthrew the Islamist
nine months ago.

Mayada Ashraf, who worked for the privately owned Al-Dustour
newspaper, was shot in the head while covering clashes in the northern
neighbourhood of Ein Shams, the official said, adding that three more
people were killed in the same violence and 10 wounded.

Four people were also wounded in clashes in the northern province of Damietta, health ministry official Khaled al-Khatib said.

In Cairo's eastern neighbourhood of Madinat Nasr, students from
Al-Azhar Islamic university hurled Molotov cocktails and stones at riot
police who fired tear gas to disperse them, security officials said.

Underlining Egypt's deep polarisation, clashes also erupted between
Morsi supporters and his opponents in the northern Cairo districts of
Ein Shams and Matareya, the officials said.

Ten Morsi supporters were arrested in clashes with security forces in
Damietta province, and 28 were arrested in the southern Minya province
for carrying leaflets hostile to the military and the police, they
added.

Demonstrators in the southern Cairo working class district of Helwan
and in Fayum province, southwest of the capital, fired birdshot and
police responded with tear gas, state news agency MENA reported.

Supporters of the widely popular presidential hopeful, who toppled
Morsi after massive street protests against his turbulent one-year rule,
also demonstrated to celebrate his candidacy.

Carrying Egyptian flags and portraits of Sisi, dozens marched in
Alexandria and scores gathered in Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square, symbol
of the 2011 uprising that toppled veteran president Hosni Mubarak.

Sisi, who was also defence minister and deputy prime minister,
announced his resignation on Wednesday to enable him to stand in the
election.

His candidacy is likely to further inflame Islamist protesters and
worry secular activists who fear a return to rule by the military and
the strong-arm tactics of the Mubarak era.

Sisi faces no serious competition in his bid for the presidency and
is widely seen as the only leader able to restore order after more than
three years of turmoil.

The electoral committee said in a statement it will hold a news
conference on Sunday to announce the timetable of the presidential
election, MENA reported.

The poll is scheduled to take place before June.

Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood has rejected Sisi's candidacy outright and
a coalition of his supporters had called Friday's protests.

Despite official attempts to bring an end to a wave of labor unrest
that contributed to the downfall of Hazem al-Beblawi's government, a
broad range of Egypt's labor workforce embarked on nationwide strikes on
Tuesday.

Notable developments on Tuesday included the arrest of several striking
postal workers in Alexandria, along with the beginning of a
mass-resignation campaign by striking doctors. Doctors, dentists,
pharmacists, postal workers, textile workers and custodial staff all
staged walk-outs during the day.

Official attempts to quell the postal workers’ strike in Egypt’s second
city led to the arrest of five independent union organizers. These
arrests, however, served to widen the scope of the postal workers’
unrest Tuesday, the third day of their strike.

More than 50,000 employees of the state-owned postal services have been on strike across the country since Sunday.

These arrests took place following legal charges filed to the office of
the prosecutor general by the chief of the postal bureau in Alexandria.
Seven other workers have also been issued arrest warrants.

The postal chief had claimed workers were attempting to obstruct public
postal services, instigate work stoppages, and that workers were
affiliated to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, which the state
classified as a terrorist organization in December.

A number of local media outlets, however, reported that families of the
arrested strikers rejected claims that their goals are politicized or
that they are affiliated to the Brotherhood. The family members also
denounced the police raids and arrests of workers from their homes.

A number of other media reports mentioned that the postal strike had a
negative impact for both clients and customers, and was perceived as an
unpopular action by workers.

Speaking at the Journalists Syndicate on Sunday, Zeinab Farag, a trade
unionist and strike leader from the Giza Postal Bureau, commented that
she and tens of thousands of her colleagues had embarked on strike
action as they were excluded from receiving the newly imposed LE1,200
monthly minimum wage, were not paid overdue bonuses and, in some cases,
actually received deductions to their salaries.

“There’s enough money and resources to provide for our demands, yet the
postal authorities do not care about us, nor do they care about our
livelihoods," Farag said.

Farag and her colleagues claim that 90 percent of postal workers are on strike.

Several medical physicians meanwhile submitted their resignations to
the Ministry of Health on Tuesday. This campaign of mass resignations
comes amid the 18 consecutive day of strike action.

These strikes include partial work stoppages which do not affect
emergency rooms, intensive care wards, nurseries, dialysis, urgent
surgeries or other pressing medical conditions. A string of partial
strikes were launched at the beginning of this year.

Joining them in this strike action are the Dentists Syndicate and
Pharmacists Syndicate. The joint strike committee for these medical
professions claims that around 75 percent of constituents are
maintaining partial strike action in public health facilities.

The Health Ministry, on the other hand, claims that only around 30
percent of these medical personnel are actually participating in
strikes.

The mass resignation campaign meanwhile aims to escalate pressure on
the health and finance ministries in order to realize strikers’
objectives: raising doctors’ starting salaries to at least the level of
the minimum wage, implementing an incremental pay scale, increasing
compensations for infectious illnesses, improving safety standards at
public hospitals, and raising the allocation for healthcare in the
national budget — from under four percent to 15 percent.

Amr al-Shora, board member of the Doctors Syndicate commented, "Today
was the first day of planning for this campaign of mass resignations.”

He clarified that the resignations would be submitted to the Health
Ministry once a certain number of signatories has been reached. The
syndicate’s objective is the collection of 20,000 signatures of
resignation prior to the submission.

Shora commented that he was the 11th syndicate board member to sign the
roster of resignations, although “many others have also signed on to
this list of collective resignations.

Some state-owned media outlets have suggested that strikes and
resignations would not improve, but harm, the country’s medical
healthcare system.

"Public hospitals lack proper facilities, equipment and funding," Shora
said in response. "This is what really harms Egypt’s patients. We are
part of a medical system with sub-human standards. This is our way of
challenging this broken system, and aspiring to improve it.”

The syndicate board member added that further escalatory actions will
be proposed and discussed on Friday during the Doctors’ Syndicate
General Assembly meeting.

Meanwhile in the Nile Delta city of Kafr al-Dawwar, over 2,000 textile
workers from the state-owned Misr Spinning and Weaving Company went on
strike for the second day, demanding the payment of the new minimum
wage, overdue bonuses, increased investments in the public sector
textile industry, as well as the re-operation of stalled production
lines within their industrial complex.

Also in Beheira Governorate, several hundred custodial workers and
street cleaners in Kafr al-Dawwar and Damanhour, continued with strike
actions for the eight consecutive day.

They demanded contracts for fulltime work, along with the payment of the new minimum wage.

The Guardian

Mohamed Fahmy, one of four imprisoned journalists, reveals injury has worsened after being denied treatment since arrest

Saturday 22 March 2014

Patrick Kingsley

One of the four jailed al-Jazeera journalists in Egypt no longer
has full use of his arm after being denied proper medical treatment in
prison for a shoulder injury suffered before he entered custody.

In
his first trip to a civilian hospital since his arrest in late
December, the Canadian-Egyptian journalist Mohamed Fahmy showed friends
and family on Saturday that he could not move his right arm more than a
few centimetres.

Driven to hospital by an escort of
balaclava-wearing police officers, Fahmy used his rare contact with the
outside world to ask to be given more regular access to his lawyer, who
he meets for only 45 minutes before a court appearance, and for the court's sessions to be held more regularly than once every three weeks.

An
ex-CNN producer, Fahmy also requested to be allowed more than one hour
each day outside his windowless cell, which he shares with fellow
al-Jazeera journalists Peter Greste and Baher Mohamed.

They have
been placed next door to two leading allies of the former president
Mohamed Morsi – the head of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Badie,
and his one-time prime minister, Hisham Kandil.

The
Egyptian state claims that their coverage distorts Egypt's image in
order to help Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood, which it has designated a
terrorist group. But globally the cases are seen as an attack on free
speech and have sparked widespread outcry.

In his appearance at
hospital, Fahmy said Greste and Mohamed were in good spirits and were
now allowed to read newspapers, which helped to alleviate the boredom of
prison.

Fahmy appeared upbeat himself, joking with family members
in between two scans on his injured arm, and saying the experience
would be good material for a book.

"Let's go home," he quipped to a police officer as he left again for prison.

But
his family stressed that Fahmy needed to return to hospital as soon as
possible. "He should be released on bail to allow him to get proper
treatment," said Adel Fahmy, the journalist's younger brother.

Index on Censorship

21 March, 2014

In a move that has sparked concern among Egyptian secularists, the
country’s censorship committee this week banned 20 music videos
allegedly containing “heavy sexual connotations” and featuring
“scantily-dressed female singers and models.”

The decision to ban the video clips deemed “inappropriate” and
“indecent” by members of the state censorship committee, comes two
months after a new constitution guaranteeing freedom of expression and
opinion was approved by 98 per cent of voters in a national referendum.
The new charter replaced the 2012 constitution, widely criticized by
rights organizations and revolutionary activists as an “Islamist-tinged”
document.

The majority of Egypt’s secularists who celebrated the ouster of
Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in Tahrir Square in July had feared
that the Muslim Brotherhood –the Islamist group from which he hails –was
seeking to alter Egypt’s ‘moderate’ identity. The Islamist group has
since been outlawed and designated a terrorist organization by the
military-backed authorities that replaced the toppled president.

The banning of the video clips comes amid heated debate on “raunchy”
music videos broadcast on some of the Arab satellite channels. In
recent years, an increasing number of popular Arab female singing-stars
have challenged social norms and broken cultural taboos by revealing
more flesh in their video clips. The trend has stirred controversy in
Egypt’s deeply conservative Muslim society with many Egyptians rejecting
what they describe as “the pornification of pop music”. They insist
that the “graphic, semi-porn sexual scenes featured in some of the music
videos are not in line with Islamic tradition and culture”.

“Some of these video clips are more porn than music. We can hardly
understand the lyrics; They are an insult to Arabic music and culture,”
said Amina Mansour , a Western educated 30 year- old Egyptian freelance
photographer.

It is no surprise that some liberal, westernised Egyptians agree
with ultra-conservative Muslims in their society that the videos should
be banned. Egyptian society–once a melting pot of different cultures has
grown more conservative in the last 30 years.

In his book Whatever
Happened to the Egyptians, Economist Galal Amin blames the growing
conservatism in the country on the introduction of Wahhabism –a more
rigid form of Islam practised in Saudi Arabia and adopted by the
millions of Egyptian migrants who travelled to Gulf countries after the
oil boom in the seventies, seeking higher-paid jobs.

The gradual
transformation from a diverse, open and tolerant society into today’s
conservative and far less tolerant Egypt is evident in the style of
dress, behaviour and speech of many Egyptians. An estimated 90 per cent
of women wear the hijab-the head covering worn by Muslim women -while
the niqab, a veil covering the face , has become more prevalent in
recent years.

Some analysts believe the trend of conservatism, which had steadily
grown in Egypt recent decades, now appears to be regressing. A growing
number of women and girls are removing their Islamic headscarf —once
adopted as a political statement against the authoritarian regime of
Hosni Mubarak and against Western-style values imposed on the society.

Leila el Shentenawy, a 31 year old lawyer told Index she removed her
veil after Morsi’s ouster to express her disappointment with Islamist
rule.

“Morsi failed to deliver on promised reforms,” she said, adding that
she and other liberal Egyptians were alarmed by the calls made by some
hardline Islamists to bring back female genital mutilation and lower the
age of marriage for girls.

“We were becoming a backward society instead of moving forward,” she said.
Shentenawi however, supports the ban on the video clips, arguing
that such videos are “commercialization of women’s bodies and a
downright insult to women.”

Other Egyptians have meanwhile expressed disappointment over the
banning of the video clips, perceiving the move as “a reversal of the
democratic gains of the January 25, 2011 Revolution” that toppled
autocratic president Hosni Mubarak and the subsequent uprising against
Islamist rule in June 2013.

“We had two uprisings for freedom and a modern, democratic society,”
lamented 26 year-old graphic designer Amr El Sherif. “The video clips
are popular with young Egyptians and the latest ban can only be
considered as a means of stifling free artistic expression.”

In January, Egyptian TV imposed a ban on several video clips
reportedly containing “seductive scenes”, deciding they
were”inappropriate for viewers”. The ban on the music videos featuring
Middle Eastern pop idols Haifa Wahby, Alissa, Nancy Agram and Ruby among
others, came in response to complaints by some viewers that the “hot
scenes” depicted in the videos were “provocative” and “went against the
morals of Muslim society.”

While modest by Western standards, “the gyrations and revealing
costumes featured in the videos were too sexy for Arab audiences”, the
censors decided. The ban is a continuation of the ultra-conservative
trend started by Islamists during their one year rule when some of their
lawmakers had complained to Parliament (then dominated by Islamists)
that “Egyptian performer Ruby’s pelvic thrust dance moves and bare
midriff were too much,” warning that the “obscene scenes” depicted in
the music videos would “trash the taste of Egyptians.”

The ban of the videos meanwhile, coincided with the sexual assault
of a female student by a mob on Cairo University’s main campus on
Monday–the first violence of its kind on an Egyptian university campus.

While condemning the assault incident in a telephone interview broadcast
on the private ONTV channel later that evening, University President
Gaber Nassar implied the victim was to blame, saying her “immodest
attire” had invited the assault. He urged students to dress modestly,
adding that those who do not follow the university’s regulation would be
barred from entering the university campus by security guards.

Some Egyptians believe that the “suggestive” and “explicit” music
videos are partly to blame for a surge in incidents of sexual harassment
and violence against women in the country since the January 2011
uprising.

“Sexual frustrations of youth –many of whom are unemployed and
unable to afford the cost of marriage– are being fuelled in part by sexy
music videos and other pornograhic material on the internet, causing
unruly behaviour by some youth,” Said Sadek, a Cairo-based Political
Sociologist and activist, told Index.

The recent ban on the video clips also comes hot on the heels of an
International Women’s Day protest-rally staged by nude Arab and Iranian
women in the Louvre Art Museum’s Square in Paris, calling for “equal
rights” and “secularism” in their respective countries.

Egyptian
internet activist Alia Al Mahdi was among the participants in the Paris
nudist rally which organizers said, was held to “highlight the many
legal and cultural restrictions imposed on women in the Arab World”. El
Mahdi had also protested naked outside the Egyptian Embassy in the
Swedish capital Stockholm in December 2012 to express her opposition to
what she called Morsi’s “Sharia Constitution.” Raising the Egyptian
flag, she had the words ” No to Sharia” written in bold print on her
naked body.

Many of the revolutionary youth-activists who led the uprisings in
Tahrir Square in January 2011 and June 2013 had hoped the downfall of
two authoritarian regimes would usher in a new era of greater freedoms
including freedom of expression and opinion.But their hopes are fading
fast amid increased restrictions and a climate of growing
repression.

Despite the challenges, they vow to continue to push for
“reforms” and “a more liberal Egypt”. While many of the revolutionaries
say they oppose Alia Al Mahdi’s method of protest, perceiving it as ”
extreme”, they insist ” there is no going back to repression and
censorship by the authorities.”

“We’ve had our first taste of freedom with the revolution three
years ago and once you’ve had that, you can only move forward and never
look back, ” said Mohamed Fawaz, an activist and member of the April 6
Movement, one of the two main groups that mobilized protesters for the
January 11 mass uprising. Meanwhile, the battle between secularists and
conservatives for the soul of the “new Egypt” continues.

March 18, 2014

A case of mass sexual assault on a female student at Cairo University
on Monday has led to a storm of accusations on TV channels and social
networking sites.

This alarming incident has also raised questions and concerns regarding
Egyptian society’s toleration of sexual harassment and its apparent
acceptance of physical assaults on women nationwide.

On Tuesday, women’s rights activists and anti-harassment volunteer
groups began preparations for a protest outside Cairo University on
Thursday, while the (state-controlled) National Council for Women called
on the government to enforce stricter legislation criminalizing sexual
harassment and assault.

A female law student was mobbed by a group of male students, groped and
sexually assaulted, shortly after she entered the campus on Monday. The
victim sought to escape from her attackers by hiding in the women’s
bathroom, yet even then a gang of students surrounded her inside,
awaiting her exit.

It was only after she was trapped inside the bathroom, apparently
crying and in a state of great distress, that university security guards
moved to disperse the assailants from around the bathroom and escorted
the girl off campus.

Gaber Nassar, president of Cairo University, spoke with privately owned
ONtv satellite channel on Monday, and claimed that such an incident of
sexual “harassment” at the University is atypical and “exceptional.” He
added that Cairo University is a respectable institution that upholds a
respectable dress code.

Nassar contradicted himself, saying, “there is no justification for
harassment,” yet he went on to imply that the student had brought this
assault upon herself as a result of the tight clothing she was wearing.

He added that the student in question was wearing a black robe covering
her body, but took it off after entering the campus. Amateur video
footage shows the victim dressed in a long-sleeved pink sweater and
black pants.

The incident was captured on camera and Nassar claimed the male
students involved would be investigated. However, it isn't clear what
legal measures have actually been taken, as he added that lawyers were
scrutinizing video footage to ascertain if a crime had taken place.
Originally, the University denied the incident had occurred.

On Tuesday, TV presenter Tamer Amin went even further in his
justification of the assault. His program “Min al-Akher” on the Rotana
Egypt satellite channel came under fire following comments he made.

Amin said, “Clothing is not a personal freedom unless it is worn at
home or in private; not in places like public universities or schools.
An employee cannot go to work dressed in their shorts, for example.”

The TV presenter went on to blame the victim even further by claiming
that the female student in question was “dressed like a belly dancer.”
Amin asked, “How was it that university guards allowed her to enter
campus in such garb, which exposed more than it covered?”

Amin further justified the mob’s sexual assault by claiming that the
“student was dressed like a slut,” and thus it was her attire which
aroused, encouraged and instigated the assault against her.

On social networking site, Twitter, user Mohamed al-Khateeb wrote that
harassment is not only a crime that happens in dark alleyways at night,
it also happens on university campuses during the daytime.

A host of female Twitter users denounced Amin as “an animal,” while
many others called on the Rotana Channel to sack him from his job for
his sexist comments condoning harassment and assaults against women.

Many other Twitter users commented that harassment is rampant in Egypt
because of unemployment, lack of affordable apartments and the general
inability to afford marriage expenses.

Other users pointed out that sexual harassment and assaults are
perpetrated by prepubescent boys and married men even though they do not
suffer from the aforementioned problems.

Sexual harassment and assaults continue to plague Egypt’s streets on a
daily basis — and, as mentioned on social networking sites — do not
appear to be based solely on womens’ attire. Women wearing the head veil
(hijab) or full face-veil (niqab) are often subjected to the same
mistreatment and assaults as those who don’t.

According to a 2013 report by UN Women, 99.3 percent of women have said
they have experienced sexual harassment or assault at some point in
their lives.

(New York) – The criminal court in Minya, Egypt
sentenced 529 people to death, possibly the largest mass death sentence
in recent years anywhere, in a trial lacking basic due process
protections.

The March 22, 2014, trial, in which the vast majority of defendants were tried in absentia, took
place in under an hour. The prosecution did not put forward evidence
implicating any individual defendant, even though it had compiled
significant evidence during its investigations, and the court prevented
defense lawyers from presenting their case or calling witnesses, three
of the defense lawyers told Human Rights Watch. A second summary session
was held two days later solely to announce the verdict.

“It’s shocking even amid Egypt’s deep political repression that a
court has sentenced 529 people to death without giving them any
meaningful opportunity to defend themselves,” said Sarah Leah Whitson,
Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The Minya court failed to
carry out its most fundamental duty to assess the individual guilt of
each defendant, violating the most basic fair trial right. These death
sentences should be immediately quashed.”

The North Minya prosecutor collectively charged the defendants for
their alleged participation in a mid-August 2013 attack on a police
station in Minya, a city in central Egypt. The specific charges include
killing a police officer and attempting to kill two others, damaging
public property, seizing weapons, illegal public assembly, and
membership in a banned organization, according to the official court
judgment obtained by Human Rights Watch.

The incident took place in the
immediate aftermath of the government’s violent dispersal on August 14,
2013, of the pro-Muslim Brotherhood sit-ins in Raba’a Al-Adawiya and
Nahda Squares in Cairo and Giza. Police and army forces used excessive lethal force in dispersing the protesters and killed up to 1,000 of them.

Out of the 545 people charged, 291 are at large, 185 had been
released pending investigations, 11 are in detention, and 58 are in
prison, according to the official judgment. Ahmed Shabib, one of the
defense lawyers, told Human Rights Watch, though, that 147 of the
defendants had been in detention, though authorities only brought about
70 to court. The court also barred several defense lawyers from
attending the trial, according to a joint statement issued by the
defense lawyers.

During the March 22, 2014, trial, the judge, Sa’ed Youssef, brought
the session to a close before completing customary opening procedures
after an argument broke out in the courtroom between the judge and
defense lawyers, the statement further noted. The statement also said
that Youssef advised the parties that they had 24 hours to make any
written motions, and that he would announce a verdict on March 24. Some
defense lawyers filed administrative motions with the court and
separately, on March 23, brought an action challenging Youssef’s actions
in front of the Bani Suef Appeals Court.

The court nevertheless issued its verdict on March 24. In its
judgment, the court did not explain the evidentiary basis for its
ruling, listing only the names of the defendants and the accusations
against them. The court acquitted 16 of the 545 defendants.

A judicial official involved in the case and speaking on the condition of anonymity told
the Associated Press on March 24 that “We are in exceptional
circumstances. We don’t have time to summon each and every defendant,
prove their presence, and confirm who are their lawyers.” He further
stated that “Now no one would dare to think to attack a police station
or a state institution after they saw death penalties falling on their
group's heads.”

Under Egyptian law, Egypt’s Grand Mufti must ratify a death sentence before it can be executed. The state-run Al Ahram
newspaper reported that the Minya criminal court will issue its final
verdict in the case on April 28 after the grand mufti issues his
decision. The defendants may appeal once a final verdict has been
issued.

On March 25, the Minya criminal court will hear another case in which
the local prosecutor has charged 683 people, among them Muslim
Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohamad Badie and the Freedom and Justice
Party chairman, Saad El-Katany, with involvement in an attack on a
second police station in Minya. No one was killed in that incident.

The 1,200 defendants charged in these two cases are among the over
16,000 Egyptians across the country whom the government has arrested in
recent months, according to figures provided to the Associated Press by senior Interior Ministry officials. Human Rights Watch has documented numerous incidents of arrests solely based on the peaceful exercise of the rights to free expression, association, and assembly.

The nationwide arrests have not been matched by any effort to hold
security officials accountable for ordering or carrying out attacks that
have killed well over 1,000 people since July 3, 2013, Human Rights
Watch said. Although Interim President Adly Mansour on March 19, 2014,
requested the justice ministry open an investigation into the Raba’a
dispersal, Egyptian authorities have taken no steps to prosecute those
responsible for the use of excessive force.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to
which Egypt is a state party, limits the circumstances in which a state
can impose the death sentence. The United Nations Human Rights
Committee, the body that interprets the ICCPR, has said
that“in cases of trials leading to the imposition of the death penalty,
scrupulous respect of the guarantees of fair trial is particularly
important.” Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all
circumstances as an inherently cruel and inhumane punishment.

“The Minya court’s sentencing more than 500 people to death for the
killing of a police officer highlights the fact that no Egyptian court
has even questioned a single police officer for the killing of well over
1,000 largely peaceful protesters since July 3,” Whitson said. “This
trial is just one of dozens of mass trials taking place every day across
Egypt, riddled with serious due process violations and resulting in
outrageous sentences that represent serious miscarriages of justice.”*Photo of grieving families courtesy of AFP/Getty Images

The only power plant in the besieged Gaza Strip was shut down on
Saturday due to a lack of fuel from Israel, which closed a goods
crossing after militant rocket attacks, the energy authority said.

“The plant has completely ceased to function due to a lack of fuel
caused by (Israel's) closure of the Kerem Shalom crossing,” said Fathi
al-Sheikh Khalil, deputy director of the energy authority in the
Palestinian territory ruled by the Islamist movement Hamas.

Israeli
Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon had ordered on Thursday the closure of
the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza and the Erez
pedestrian crossing “until further security assessments.”

In response, the energy authority cut the plant's operation from only 12 hours a day to six until the fuel ran out.

The facility, which supplies some 30 percent of Gaza's electricity
needs, has been forced to shut down several times, most recently in
December.

The power plant is one of the main sources of
electricity for Gaza's 1.8 million people and without it, daily
blackouts of around 12 hours are expected. Electricity is also received
directly from Israel and Egypt.

Gaza lacks much basic civil
infrastructure and lives under an Egyptian-Israeli blockade meant to cut
off arms flows but which also curbs imports of fuel and building
supplies.

(Geneva) – Members of the UN Human Rights Council called on Egypt and Sudan on
March 14, 2014, to investigate and prosecute traffickers for
kidnapping, torturing, and killing refugees in the Sinai Peninsula. The
24 countries sponsoring the German-led statement also called on both
countries to identify and prosecute any security officials who may have
colluded with traffickers.

On February 11 Human Rights Watch released a report titled “‘I Just Wanted to Lie Down and Die:’ Trafficking and Torture of Eritreans in Sudan and Egypt,” which documents how, since 2010,
Egyptian traffickers have tortured Eritreans for ransom in the Sinai
Peninsula using rape, burning, and mutilation. It also documents torture
by traffickers in eastern Sudan and 29 incidents in which victims said
that Sudanese and Egyptian security officers facilitated trafficker
abuses rather than arresting the traffickers and rescuing their victims.

“Four years on, there is almost complete impunity for traffickers in
Sudan and Egypt who torture refugees and for any security officials
working with them,” said Gerry Simpson,
senior refugee researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Egypt and Sudan
should respond to this call for action at the UN with concerted efforts
to arrest the traffickers and show zero tolerance for colluding security
officials.”

The statement at the human rights council and the report recognize
that Sudan has taken some steps to investigate traffickers but say that
these steps have not been sufficient. Although Egypt responded to the
Human Rights Watch report by acknowledging the trafficker abuses for the
first time, it has prosecuted only one trafficker in Cairo, and has
neither investigated nor prosecuted traffickers in Sinai.

Human Rights Watch has received reports of trafficking from eastern Sudan to Sinai as recently as February.

The failure by both countries to adequately investigate and prosecute
traffickers who severely abuse their victims and collusion by security
officials breaches their obligations under the UN Convention against
Torture, international human rights law, and, in Egypt’s case, national
and international anti-trafficking laws, Human Rights Watch said.

The statement also calls on “countries involved” – a reference to Egypt
– to stop detaining trafficking victims and to assist and protect them,
including by allowing them to access the UN refugee agency in Egypt.

Human Rights Watch’s report documents that when traffickers freed
Eritreans whose families have paid their ransom, Egyptian border police
often intercepted the Eritreans. The police transferred the Eritreans’
cases to military prosecutors and then detained the Eritreans for months
in inhuman and degrading conditions in Sinai police stations.

Egyptian
prosecutors have charged the Eritreans with immigration offenses and
denied them access to urgently needed medical care, as well as to the UN
refugee agency. Those actions violate Egypt’s 2010 law on combatting
human trafficking, which says trafficking victims should receive
assistance, protection, and immunity from prosecution.

On March 13, 2014 the European Parliament also called on Egypt and Sudan to end the trafficker abuses and to investigate allegations of security force collusion with traffickers.

“Now that these appalling crimes are being addressed at the UN Human
Rights Council, it is high time for Egypt and Sudan to publicly explain
how they plan to address them,” Simpson said.

Security personnel at the state-controlled Egyptian Trade Union
Federation (ETUF) forcefully dispersed a sit-in protest of more than 20
workers from the federation’s headquarters Wednesday.
While none of the protesting workers were arrested, a number of minor injuries were reported.

This dispersal ends a 34-day sit-in by workers from the Tanta Flax and
Oils Company and the Shebin al-Kom Textile Company at ETUF's
headquarters in downtown Cairo to demand the re-nationalization and
re-operation of their stalled companies - in accordance with earlier verdicts issued from the Administrative Courts.

The courts ruled that these two companies, along with the Nile Cotton
Ginning Company and the Nasr Steam Boilers Company, had been privatized
and sold-off for far less than their true market value.

Protesters have also been demanding their reinstatement, along with
hundreds of other workers who had been sacked or forced to retire.

According to Gamal Othman, a sacked worker from the Tanta Flax and Oils
Company, the ETUF’s custodial staff informed the protesters in the
early afternoon to move out of the halls and chambers where they were
staging their sit-in so that they could clean up.

Othman added: “Shortly after that, security personnel and a bunch of
hired thugs attacked us. Most of us were not physically assaulted but
were threatened by tens of these thugs brandishing knives and blades.”

According to Ragab al-Sheemi, a sacked worker from the Shebin al-Kom
Textile Company: “A few workers were assaulted by the ETUF staff. None
very seriously, however.”

Sheemi and several other protesters confirmed that, Sameh al-Boghdadi a
sacked worker from the Shebin al-Kom Company had been severely
assaulted – having been punched, beaten and forcefully thrown out of the
ETUF headquarters.

ETUF President Gebali al-Maraghi and the federation’s media spokesperson could not be reached for comment.

The protesters confirmed that immediately after their dispersal, ETUF
representatives had filed an official complaint against them at the
adjacent Azbakiya Police Station claiming they were conducting an
unlawful occupation, and obstructing the federation’s work.

Othman dismissed these claims stating that this occupation was
peaceful, that it was a civilized protest held indoors, which did not
obstruct traffic on the streets outside or operations within the ETUF’s
offices.

The protesters have also sought to file complaints at this police
station against ETUF on account of the physical assaults and threats
they allege they were subjected to.

Most of the demonstrators have meanwhile returned to their homes in the
Nile Delta after over a month-long absence from their families.

Some have proposed relocating sit-ins to their companies' premises.
Others expressed their determination to move back to ETUF and continue
their occupation until their demands are met.

“The ETUF president and [Minister of Manpower] Nahed al-Ashry claim
that they want to get the wheels of production back in motion, yet they
are the ones who are obstructing our production and keeping us from
returning to our jobs in our factories” said Sheemi.

He explained that the vast majority of factories and production lines
at the Shebin al-Kom Textile Company were idle and collecting dust. “We
merely need the authorities to respect and uphold judicial verdicts
issued in our favor.”

Sheemi explained that the Shebin al-Kom Textile Company used to produce
60 to 70 tons of fabrics per day prior to its privatization in 2007.
However the company is currently operating at a fraction of its original
capacity and workforce - producing a meager two tons per day.

Workers from Shebin al-Kom have been demanding that the Textile Holding
Company – which is responsible for managing this company, along with 31
others – re-operate all factories and reinstate all workers to the
company. Yet the Textile Holding Company has not officially responded to
these demands.

The Tanta Flax Company, which was privatized in 2005, has almost
identical demands. This company is managed by the Chemical Industries
Holding Company, yet has not received any responses regarding
re-operation of stalled factories or reinstatement of sacked workers.

Although statements issued from the Finance Ministry indicated that the
Tanta Flax Company might be up and running by next year, it made no
mention of reinstating sacked workers.

The sacked workers repeatedly mentioned that the authorities in charge of these companies were unresponsive.

“ETUF and its president don’t represent Egypt’s workers," claimed
Sheemi. "They only represent the interests of the ruling regime and the
interests of businessmen.”

Workers from these two companies, along with hundreds of sacked workers
from the Nasr Steam Boilers Company and the Nile Cotton Ginning
Company, are still studying means to escalate protests.

Mada Masr

March 11, 2014

Jano Charbel

Following the previous cabinet’s resignation on February 24 amid a
massive wave of labor strikes, the new Minister of Manpower Nahed
al-Ashry moved to issue a controversial initiative on Sunday banning
work stoppages for the next 12 months.

In media statements issued Sunday, the minister also claimed that she
aspires to reach a deal with employers so as to realize the demands of
striking workers, with the aim of containing their anger and limiting
unrest.

Ashry has served in the Dispute Resolution Bureau of the Ministry of
Manpower for the past 20 years — under the labor ministers appointed by
Mubarak, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, and the Brotherhood.

On Tuesday, a host of independent labor unions and workers’
organizations responded to this initiative by denouncing it as being
unilateral, and offering striking workers nothing in return.

The Ministry had announced on Sunday that it has signed this new
initiative with a new, small and virtually unknown, organization dubbed
the “Egyptian National Workers' Federation.”

This new proposal for a ban on strikes violates the provisions of the
International Labor Organization’s Convention 87 (which the Egyptian
state voluntarily ratified in 1957) along with Article 8 of the United
Nation’s International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights
(ratified in 1982), and may even contravene Article 15 of the new
Egyptian Constitution regarding the right to strike.

According to a statement issued in response from the independent Center
for Trade Union and Workers’ Services (CTUWS), this initiative does not
represent the will of Egyptian workers, as it was only signed by a
novel union federation “which has a membership of no more than 200
workers.”

The CTUWS statement also mentioned that if the Ministry of Manpower had
sincerely sought to end strikes and labor unrest, they would have met
with genuine representatives of Egypt’s workers and unions to hear their
demands, and not issued unilateral initiatives with “unknown labor
organizations.” The CTUWS criticized the new minister's unwillingness to
engage in dialogue or collective bargaining with independent unions.

The CTUWS also mentioned that, had the Ministry of Manpower been
concerned with workers’ grievances or their resolution, it would issue a
new trade union law and a new labor law to replace the outdated and
repressive legislation in existence, along with the provision of an
all-inclusive minimum wage.

Representatives of the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions
and the (independent) Workers’ Coordination Committee (consisting of
representatives from ten companies and the Strike Committee of the
Doctors Syndicate) also issued a statement on Tuesday criticizing
Ibrahim Mehleb and his new cabinet, while calling for the prime
minister's trial for neglecting labor demands.

The statement issued by the Workers’ Coordination Committee denounced
Mehleb and his Cabinet for failing to provide a minimum wage for Egypt’s
workers, not imposing a maximum wage cap on (public sector)
administrators, not re-operating hundreds of stalled factories, failing
to uphold court verdicts regarding the re-nationalization of four
(privatized) companies, and not re-instating thousands of sacked
workers.

In April 2013, the Dokki Criminal Court sentenced then-Prime Minister
Hesham Qandil to one year in prison for failing to renationalize
companies in accordance with earlier Administrative Court rulings.

Neither Ashry nor the spokesperson for the Ministry of Manpower could be reached for comment.
The Ministry, along with other state authorities have claimed that
labor strikes and industrial actions are harming the national economy
and are incurring several millions of pounds worth of losses.

Yet tens of thousands of workers, employees and professionals have been
on strike since the beginning of this year, and have claimed that their
strikes are a result of governmental mismanagement and corruption –
which has incurred several billions of pounds worth of losses.

In a televised public address on March 2, Mehleb recognized the
legitimacy of workers’ grievances, yet he added: “I call on you to
refrain from all protests, sit-ins and strikes. Let us commence the
rebuilding of our nation.”

A number of cabinet members have also claimed that the state does not
currently have resources at its disposal to meet the demands of striking
workers.

In April 2011, the military-appointed cabinet issued Law 34/2011, which
criminalizes strikes and protests harming the economy with penalties of
fines and/or imprisonment. These fines range from LE30,000 to
LE500,000, with prison sentences of one year or more. While this law is
technically still in effect, it has widely been ignored by workers and
has very rarely been enforced by the authorities.

Under the rule of former-President Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim
Brotherhood's Khaled al-Azhary — who was appointed Minister of Manpower —
also proposed a one-year-ban on strikes, yet this proposal was never
implemented.

In a similar proposal to that of Ashry, television presenter Amr Adeeb suggested a six-month ban on all strikes.
On March 3, Adeeb called on all workers to refrain from striking or
protesting for half a year, and to make do with the monthly minimum wage
of LE1,200.

Adeeb called on all businessmen to donate 95 percent of their profits
each month to a fund to replenish the state coffers. He also called on
football players and celebrities to do the same, while subsisting on
LE1,200 per month.

However, thousands of striking doctors have mocked Adeeb’s proposal on
social networking sites, explaining that most physicians employed in
public hospitals do not even earn LE1,200 per month. This minimum wage
has not yet been extended to the majority of doctors who work for the
Health Ministry.

From a total workforce of over 27 million, the minimum wage has been
officially provided to a mere 4.9 million public sector employees,
although there are more than seven million workers employed by the
government and in state-owned enterprises.

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Associated Press

March 9, 2014

PARIS (AP) The Louvre has always showcased nudes. Never quite like this.

Paris
police say they arrested six women Saturday for baring their breasts
and more outside the pointy-pyramid entrance to the museum in front of
dumbstruck, applauding tourists. They were released after identity
checks.

Protest organizer Safia Lebdi says the demonstration was
connected to International Women's Day. She says the women waved flags
of Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt and Iran to highlight the many legal and
cultural restrictions imposed on women in the Muslim world.

One
of the naked protesters, Amina Sboui, is a former member of a
Paris-based exhibitionist group called Femen renowned for its topless
protests. Last year Sboui spent more than two months imprisoned in
Tunisia for allegedly desecrating a cemetery by writing "Femen" on a
wall.

Tens of thousands of doctors, pharmacists and dentists launched an open-ended strike on Saturday, an escalation of unprecedented industrial action by workers and professional staff in Egypt.

Outside the headquarters of the Cabinet, dozens of sacked employees protested.

Medical professionals nationwide have been on a partial strike for
weeks while workers have occupied the headquarters of the
state-controlled trade union federation for a month, demanding the
re-operation of stalled factories and the implementation of court verdicts issued in 2011 for the re-nationalization of several privatized companies.

Since the start of the year, Egypt has witnessed a massive wave of
strikes and industrial action, which are believed to have brought the
tenure of former Prime Minister Hazem al-Beblawi and his cabinet to an
abrupt end in late February.

Egypt’s new Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb appointed Nahed al-Ashry
as Minister of Manpower, a controversial figure which spurred the
concern of labor activists and independent trade union organizers. She
has been quoted in local media as saying that she plans to bring an end
to strikes and protests, and it is for her experience in dispute
resolution that she was appointed.

MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS

Since May 2011, the Doctors Syndicate has launched a string of partial
strikes demanding an increase in the healthcare expenditure of the state
budget to 15 percent from the current 3.5 percent.

In these three years, doctors have also been demanding improved
services at public hospitals, safer working conditions, higher salaries,
an incremental pay-raise scale and adequate compensation for infectious
illnesses, to name a few.

The General Assembly of the Doctors Syndicate decided to resume its
strike action at the beginning of this year and, on Saturday, thousands
of dentists and pharmacists joined.

Members of the Veterinarians Syndicate launched an open sit-in at the
headquarters of the Federation of Medical Professions located in
downtown Cairo.

The Doctors’ Joint Strike Committee claimed that around 80 percent of
the country’s physicians, dentists and pharmacists — around 64,000
medical professionals — participated in the first day of the open
strike, which is expected to continue in public hospitals and the Health
Ministry’s medical facilities until the end of the month.

On March 28, doctors are to convene for a general assembly meeting and
decide on further action. Countless medical professionals have
threatened to resign if their demands continue to go unmet.

The Nurses Syndicate has denounced the open strike while the Healthy
Ministry downplayed the number of medical professionals taking part to
33 percent.

In a Saturday press conference, the newly appointed Minister of Health
Adel al-Adawi said that while “partial strikes are a constitutional
right of doctors…[they] must not negatively affect patients’ rights or
deny them treatment.”

On his part, Mohamed Fattouh, a member of the Doctors’ Joint Strike
Committee, said that the “partial strikes have never been geared towards
denying patients treatment.”

Emergency rooms, intensive care units, nurseries, dialysis machines,
and all forms of urgent medical treatment and surgeries are not affected
by the open-ended partial strike, he explained.

He accused military personnel of threatening striking doctors in South
Sinai Governorate to resume all non-essential medical services or face
arrest.

In a televised address to the army’s fresh medical graduates on
Thursday, Defense Minister Field Marshall Abdel Fattah al-Sisi praised
Egypt’s doctors and medical staff as being the country’s best and
brightest minds. He added, however, that due to dire economic
conditions, doctors’ demands for increasing the state’s medical
expenditure could not be met at the moment.

In a speech loaded with nationalistic rhetoric, Sisi repeatedly asked
doctors to selflessly postpone their demands while working for the
general wellbeing of Egyptians.

A day later, the Doctors’ Joint Strike Committee responded to Sisi in a
written statement, citing Egypt’s place as the “world’s leader in
Hepatitis C infections,” adding that “the state does not care about
doctors’ rights or the rights of poor patients. It does not care about
public hospitals or those within them.”

The committee called on Sisi to open up the military’s medical
facilities for public use. These facilities are generally equipped with
more advanced equipment and provide a relatively better standard of
healthcare than public hospitals.

Representatives of the workers filed their demands and grievances in
writing to the secretarial officers of Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb’s
newly appointed government.

Saturday marked the 28th day of an ongoing sit-in of workers
from Tanta Flax and Shebin al-Kom Textile companies outside the
headquarters of the state-controlled Egyptian Trade Union Federation
(ETUF). They were later joined by workers from the other companies
demanding that the state uphold verdicts issued by the Administrative
Court nearly three years ago.

Tanta Flax, along with the Shebin el-Kom Textile and Nasr Boilers, all
had their privatization contracts nullified by the court in September
2011, on the basis that they were sold at grossly undervalued prices.

Some protesting workers carried a cardboard coffin on their shoulders
inscribed with the words: “May judicial verdicts rest in peace.” The
coffins were left to rest outside the Cabinet offices.

Abdel Aziz Mohamed, who had been sacked from Tanta Flax, said: “We are
willing to work for free for as long as it takes to get our company
running again.”

He added that while the government is calling on workers to halt
protests and strikes in order to increase productivity, their companies’
operations remain stalled. “We want to end our protest, and we want to
go back to work but the authorities are preventing us from doing so,” he
said.

Authorities from the Ministry of Investment as well as the Holding
Company for Chemical Industries claimed last year that Tanta Flax may be
up and running by 2015. But after nearly four years of unemployment,
the sacked workers of Tanta Flax have grown impatient with officials’
promises.

Atef Hussein, from the privatized Simo Paper Company, said that he and
his fellow workers are protesting because investors had halted
production and not paid wages since June 2013.

“We have been demanding the re-operation of our company and the payment
of our overdue wages for nearly a year now, but government officials
and authorities from the Holding Company for Chemical Industries have
ignored our pleas,” he said.

Several months ago, workers from Simo Paper filed a case before the
Administrative Court claiming that their company had been sold for less
than its market value. The court is scheduled to issue a verdict in this
case on March 15.

Hassan Mohamed, a worker in Nasr Steam Boilers, said that the
Administrative Court’s verdict ruling that the state re-operate the
company “has been shelved, and our demands have fallen on deaf ears.”

He described the company as “a national treasure lost to negligence, privatization and mismanagement.”

Joining the protest outside the Cabinet, Atef Abdel Mongy, an
independent labor activist, said that the new Minister of Manpower Nahed
al-Ashry and the rest of Mehleb’s Cabinet want to put an end to labor
unrest, “but they lack the political willpower to uphold labor rights,
to return workers to their jobs, or to create new job opportunities."

“They want to end strikes and labor protests, yet they offer the workers next to nothing in return.”

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

Member States Call on Cairo to End Violations, Ensure Justice

March 7, 2014

(Geneva) –A joint declaration by 27 United Nations member states expressing concern about Egypt’s
repeated use of excessive force against demonstrators turned the
international spotlight on Egypt’s human rights abuses. It was the
firstsuch action at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva since Egyptian
security forces killed hundreds of protesters in dispersing a sit-in at
Raba’a Square in Cairo on August 14, 2013.

The joint declaration on March 7, 2014 called for Egyptian authorities
to hold those responsible for the abuses to account. The 27 countries
also denounced Egypt’s restrictions on peaceful assembly, expression and
association and urged the government to release those arrested solely
for exercising those rights.

“For the first time UN member states have used the forum of the Human
Rights Council to spotlight the abuses going on in Egypt,” said Julie de Rivero,
Geneva director. “Egyptian authorities are now on notice that the
international community will not ignore their crackdown on dissent and
impunity for repeated, unlawful killings of protesters.”

The joint statement highlighted the need for justice for the killing of
protesters and security forces since June 30, 2013, and the
installation of a military-backed government. The statement called for
findings of the national Fact Finding Commission, established by the
interim president in December 2013, to be made public and for those
responsible for grave violations to be held accountable.

On March 3, 2014, a group of 15 nongovernmental organizations, including Human Rights Watch, sent a letter
to UN member countries calling on the Human Rights Council to address
the “grave situation of human rights in Egypt at the upcoming 25th
Session of the UNHRC.”

The situation in Egypt has grown increasingly dire over the past eight
months, as security forces use excessive lethal force against
protesters. Authorities arrest or harass journalists, peaceful
protesters, and others for exercising the rights to free expression and
peaceful assembly, as well as solely for membership in the Muslim
Brotherhood. There have been no efforts to hold accountable security
officials responsible for ordering or carrying out attacks that have
killed well over 1,000 people since July 3, 2013.

The joint statement
was in response to a call by the UN high commissioner for human rights,
Navi Pillay, for Egypt to respect human rights, in particular
protection from arbitrary detention, the right to a fair trial, and
freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.

“Egyptian officials should understand that the world is watching and
will not accept denial, foot-dragging, and impunity for pervasive rights
violations,” de Rivero said. “After killing hundreds and arbitrarily
detaining many more, Egypt needs to act to address serious concerns
about its human rights record.”

New York Times

March 4, 2014

David D. Kirkpatrick

CAIRO — Medea Benjamin, a co-founder of the American protest group Code Pink,
which opposes United States military actions, said Tuesday that she had
been detained in the Cairo airport and assaulted by the Egyptian police
while trying to travel to Gaza for a meeting opposing Israeli
incursions and restrictions there.

A
spokesman for the Egyptian foreign ministry said that Ms. Benjamin had
been stopped at the airport because the Gaza border crossing was closed,
and that she had then physically resisted the airport security agents.
“She arrived in Cairo and insisted on going to Gaza,” said the
spokesman, Badr Abdelatty. “She was prevented because the border
crossing is closed.”

Ms.
Benjamin, an American, was held for several hours with other women in
an airport room that was full of bunk beds. She used a mobile device to
send messages and pictures over Twitter.

“Stuck in cold jail cell at
Cairo airport gives new meaning to term ‘jetlag,'” she tweeted around 8
a.m. Tuesday. Then, around 11 a.m., she tweeted: “Help. They broke my
arm. Egypt police.”

Mr.
Abdelatty said Ms. Benjamin had refused to board a flight back to the
United States and had struggled as she was forcibly escorted to another
flight, to Istanbul.

In a news release sent after she landed, Ms. Benjamin said she had been “brutally assaulted.”

“When
the authorities came into the cell to deport me, two men threw me to
the ground, stomped on my back, pulled my shoulder out of its socket and
handcuffed me so that my injured arm was twisted around and my wrists
began to bleed,” she said. “I was then forced to sit between the two men
who attacked me on the plane ride from Cairo to Istanbul, and I was
(and still am) in terrible pain the whole time.”

Ms.
Benjamin helped found Code Pink to oppose the American invasion of Iraq
in 2003. The group, which is composed mainly of women, has increasingly
focused its attention-grabbing protests on other causes like health
care, gun control and the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian
territories.

Mada Masr

March 4, 2014

Jano Charbel

New Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb’s appointment of the controversial
figure Nahed al-Ashry as Minister of Manpower has caused a great deal of
concern among labor activists and independent trade union organizers
across the country.

Her appointment comes in light of a massive wave of strikes and other
industrial actions that have rocked the country since the beginning of
the year, and are believed to be the chief cause behind the resignation
of Prime Minister Hazem al-Beblawi and his cabinet on February 24.

Sworn into office on Saturday, Ashry is only the second woman to occupy
this portfolio, after Aisha Abdel Hady, who was appointed in 2005.
Ashry has served as chief of the Dispute Resolution Bureau within the
Ministry of Manpower under the Hosni Mubarak regime. She served in the
bureau for a total of 20 years.

Many workers and labor activists claim that the 57-year-old is a Mubarak loyalist, or feloul —
a remnant of the old regime. However, since her appointment Ashry has
sought to distance herself from the Mubarak regime and his now-defunct
National Democratic Party (NDP), mentioning in news reports that she is a
non-affiliated technocrat with no links to Mubarak and his party, or
any other party.

Adding to the skepticism about her allegiances is the fact that she was
handpicked by Mehleb — who himself was a member of the NDP’s Policies
Committee under Hosni Mubarak’s son Gamal Mubarak.

“We definitely didn’t chose her to serve in this capacity,” said Talal
Shokr, board member of the (independent) Egyptian Democratic Labor
Confederation (EDLC).

“As union representatives we were not consulted regarding Nahed
al-Ashri’s appointment, nor did we have a say regarding her appointment.
It was the prime minister’s choice, he appointed her to serve as a
technocrat in his government. Or perhaps it’s merely an attempt to
return to Mubarak’s old policies and old officials.”

“Apparently the previous minister [Kamal Abu Eita] was deemed not
qualified or not experienced enough to serve as minister of manpower,”
he added “She’s the worst person who could possibly be chosen to fill the post
of Minister of Manpower,” said Hisham al-Oql, a worker activist who was
forced to resign from his job at the privatized Tanta Flax and Oils
Company in 2010.

“There is nobody around whom there is complete approval or consensus.
Yet I will strive to serve everybody who requests assistance,” Ashry
said on Sunday during a televised interview on privately owned CBC Extra
satellite channel.

Oql added: “Doctor Nahed has personally overseen the corrupt and
unlawful privatizations of both the Tanta Flax Company and the Shebin
al-Kom Textiles Company, along with several others. She also arranged
the forced resignations and early retirements of hundreds of workers —
in just these two companies, not to mention the other companies in which
thousands of workers were sacked.”

Oql, along with dozens of workers from these two companies, has been
occupying the headquarters of the (state-controlled) Egyptian Trade
Union Federation (ETUF) for the past 24 days. They are demanding the
re-operation of their stalled companies in light of the Administrative Court’s verdict on September 28, 2013 that these companies are to be returned to the public sector.

Neither Ashry nor the Ministry of Manpower’s spokesperson could be
reached for comments about the minister’s plans to quell labor unrest or
re-operate stalled companies.

In an interview with the privately owned Al-Shorouk newspaper on
Wednesday, Ashry is quoted as saying that her experience in dispute
resolution is the reason she was appointed.

She served in the Ministry of Manpower’s Dispute Resolution Bureau
under Mubarak’s rule, Mohamed Morsi’s rule and that of the interim
government propped up by the military.

In a number of other media reports, the newly-appointed minister also
mentioned that she aspires to bring an end to labor unrest while
promoting production and increasing output.
Oql dismissed these comments.

“If she is serious about her talk of production and workers’
productivity then she would be working to implement court verdicts for
the re-operation of our stalled factories, and the reinstatement of us
sacked workers,” he said.

“Doctor Nahed was a close associate of Aisha Abdel Hadi, who served as
Minister of Manpower during some of the worst years for Egyptian workers
— when tens of thousands were laid off from the public sector, and when
the most basic labor rights were either ignored or openly violated,”
Oql added.

However, the minister expressed a change of policies in her interview with Al-Shorouk. Ashry said she aims to provide the new minimum wage of LE 1,200 to
all governmental and public sector employees in the near future, while
also seeking to extend this to those employed in the private sector.

“Her success will depend on the recognition of workers’ rights and the
enforcement of these rights, including not only the right to a minimum
wage, but also the enforcement of a maximum wage for public sector
officials, along with the right to collective bargaining and the right
to establish unions independent of state control,” Shokr commented.

“We’ll give her a chance to prove herself and we hope that she will be
able to uphold the international labor conventions which Egypt has
ratified – so as to protect workers’ essential rights and freedoms,” he
added

“Doctor Nahed is an eloquent speaker and a very convincing debater, but
not much more,” said Oql. “She’ll only bring us more of the same — the
same empty promises.”

According to Shokr the new minister must be prepared to engage in
dialogue with striking workers and their representatives, or she will
not succeed in her post.

“She must be open to societal discussions and to collective bargaining
with unions. Otherwise she’ll just be carrying on with the state’s
policy of ignoring labor rights and grievances — as has been the case
for well over four decades.”

Ashri has announced her intention of discussing contentious labor
issues with the state-controlled ETUF at the end of this month, but not
with representatives of Egypt’s independent trade union movement.

Other statements recently made by Ashri, regarding Egyptian laborers
abroad, have also caused concern. She raised eyebrows this week when she
announced a return to Abdel Hadi’s policy of sending Egyptian women to
work as maids in the Arab Gulf countries — on condition that their
contracts are registered with Egyptian embassies and consulates there.

Yet the kafeel system (which means workers’ control by
employment sponsors) has in the past translated into rampant labor
violations against these workers, along with other Egyptian laborers, in
the Gulf.

On Monday the spokesperson of the left-leaning Tagammu Party, Nabil
Zakariya, called Ashry “an enemy of both Egypt’s women and its working
class." Similar denunciations were issued from the Egyptian Communist Party and
the (opposition umbrella) Kifaya Movement, among others.

In his public address to the nation on Sunday, Mehleb announced that he
seeks to increase employment opportunities for the country’s labor
force and “safeguard the public sector enterprises, uphold workers’
rights, and struggle to root out corruption along with those responsible
for it.”

“I address you in the spirit of nationalism and love of our country,
now is the time for work and production,” he said. “There must be no
voice louder than that of construction and development. Thus from my
heart I call on you to refrain from all protests, sit-ins and strikes.
Let us commence the rebuilding of our nation.”

Mehleb failed to acknowledge that a large number of the recent strikes
and other forms of labor protests have been aimed at ending corruption
and mismanagement. Tens of thousands of workers have gone on strikes
with the alleged objective of increasing accountability and putting a
stop to corruption in the public sectors including textiles, transport,
steel and iron mills and post offices.

According to Shokr, instead of focusing her efforts on attempting to
end strikes, “Ashry and the new cabinet should focus on attempting to
end, or at least confront corruption and mismanagement, which have been
the cause of numerous strikes and industrial actions over the years.”

Mehleb continued his national address by stating that he would heed the
demands and grievances of striking workers. He said workers should
substitute labor protests with petitions from their representatives to
the new government. He concluded by quoting a verse from the Quran
regarding God’s admiration of work and productivity.